Suggested IT Security Resources
Multi Factor-Authentication
Multi factor-authentication (MFA) is an authentication method that requires you to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a resource such as an application or an online account. MFA is a core component of a strong identity and access management (IAM) policy. Rather than just asking for a username and password, MFA requires one or more additional verification factors, which decreases the likelihood of a successful cyber attack.
How Does MFA work?
MFA works by requiring additional verification information (factors). One of the most common MFA factors that users encounter are one-time passwords (OTP). OTPs are those 4-8 digit codes that you often receive via email, SMS or some sort of mobile app. With OTPs a new code is generated periodically or each time an authentication request is submitted. The code is generated based upon a seed value that is assigned to the user when they first register and some other factor which could simply be a counter that is incremented or a time value.
MFA for Office 365
Many cloud based systems provide their own MFA offerings like AWS or Microsoft’s Office 365 product. Office 365 by default uses Azure Active Directory (AD) as its authentication system. You only have four options when it comes to what type of additional authentication factor you can use: Microsoft Authenticator, SMS, Voice and Oauth Token.
See our guide on setting up MFA